By Apparently Anthony Perez didn’t get the message: the Motorola Droid screen should be harder to break than the vast majority of phone screens because it is protected by Gorilla Glass. Now you’re wondering what the heck Gorilla Glass is… aren’t you? It’s made by Corning and essentially the glass is supercharged by dunking it in superhuman glass juice. Or more scientifically speaking:
Like many glasses used in these kinds of applications, Gorilla glass chemically strengthened. Glass is a brittle material. Brittle materials are extremely strong under compression but extremely weak under tension. When you chemically temper a glass, you immerse it in a salt bath and you stuff larger ions in all the surfaces and put them all under compression.
What’s unique about Gorilla Glass is that because of its inherent composition, it can allow those larger ions to penetrate the surface more deeply to increase the compression tolerance and tolerate deeper scratches.
The compression pushes a flaw back. It’s harder to break from a deeper scratch.
And if you’re REALLY interested in how all this works, you’ll probably be entertained by the following little chart that compares Gorilla Glass and Soda Lime Glass (they should rename it Sprite Glass or 7UP glass):
I originally found this goodness over at Gizmodo where their article is titled “Why Even Clumsy People Like You Would have Trouble Breaking The Display On a Motorola Droid”. But what if you’re wearing sweatpants in your Celica and your Droid slips out of your pocket as you stand up? That, my friend, is an unfortunate problem that even Gorilla Glass could never protect against.
Like I told you before… just ask Anthony Perez.
Actually Gorilla Glass did it’s job by preventing the underlying LCD from also fracturing.
It does at least explain why the screen still worked and didn’t slice his hand to shreds when he tried to use it.
Good points CJ and Integgroll… that’s a really good point.
Yeah. Otherwise I would of been the epic failure who drives a Celica, wears sweatpants out of his house, broke his Droid, and severed his fingures. Thank you gorilla glass for not making a complete failure! Haha
Haha…what has this world come to when even the “more scientifically speaking” quote includes things like: “…stuff larger ions in all the surfaces…”
seems like iPhone also uses Gorilla Glass… i saw a few iPhones w/ broken glass but still functioned well, and not cutting the fingers a single bit
Wow. Glad I bought a $20 screen protector….
so what did Anthony Perez do? Please tell me you had insurance and could just dish out the $50 to have it replaced??
Note to self…don’t wear sweat pants when getting out of a Toyota with your Droid ;)
The Droid doesn’t have a whole lot of protection for the edge of the glass, which is the weak point of most tempered glass.
@androidnewby … asurion insurance thru verizon = $89 deductible, not $50, and they can give you whatever they feel like giving you for a replacement basically, if you read the fine print.
Any opinions about what a screen protector like a Phantom Skinz might do to help reduce this situation?
lol Sprite glass. And boo to sweat pants. They should never be worn in public
I guess this explains the videos where people just go to town on their Droid with a metal key and it doesn’t make a single scratch.
@androidnewby
Yeah deductible is $89 for Verizon’s insurance as Webby said.
If you bought your phone at Best Buy though and purchase their insurance as well/in lieu of Verizon’s insurance, they will replace the glass for free. (I should note that Best Buy coverage doesn’t cover lost/stolen phones though so that is something to consider if you are the type of person who often loses their phone)
Funny. I user gorilla glass plugs in my 1/2″ stretched earlobes.
http://www.getgorilla.com/products.htm
Why was your phone in your pocket when you were driving? How could you answer it if it rang? How do you use the nav when its in your pants… don’t answer that!
Sigh. It HAD to be the sweatpants, LOL. Let’s chip in and get Anthony some jeans for Xmas.
Some people have talked about how Droid is cheaply made …that’s not so dandy…maybe this will help close there gaps. …ha
I am a ceramic engineer. The soda-lime glass is called that because the primary additives are sodium and calcium carbonate (lime as in limestone).
Happens in corduroy pants too. My glass is just cracked in the corner luckily. I gorilla glued it to keep it from getting worse, so far so good.
iphone doesn’t use gorilla glass. if you saw an iphone with a cracked screen it’s because it had a screen protector on it. with gorilla glass you don’t even need a screen protector.
g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g unit!!
yes i wondered if i was just lucky or what! i dropped my droid and the glass got all cracked and it was hard to see but the screen itself did not get cracked!
best buy’s insurance sucks…they have the option to send your droid out for service and will give you their crappiest phone as a temporary replacement for a $150 deposit.
one of the mobile moron’s at the Atwater Village best buy said i should just go to the verizon store since my phone was still under the 1 year warranty. luckily for me, the damage was in the inside and not apparent that it was from a drop…
best buyer beware!
Started looking into my Droid and came across this article! Same thing happened to both my wife’s and my Droids! You can’t scratch the surface at all with a fingernail, but we both dropped outs within a week of each other. Now we use the cheap carrying cases … that seem to only hold for a month or two before the front part falls off. I might have to use Gorilla Glue to hold those on!
Not much protection for the edge of the glass…
I have had my droid 2 weeks I bought an otterbox for it the otterbox broke, after that I dropped my phone and the whole screen cracked not happy with otterbox or the droid phone it should be made better than that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It’s funny that if a Droid drops then it is cheaply made but even with all the broken iPhone screens they are still the best thing since sliced bread
Motorola made a huge mistake by making a glass case, working in the glass industry for 10 years I can tell you this glass case is not a good idea. You can use this phone as a weapon this glass will break because it is not tempored and even tempored glass breaks in little peaces. the Glass case makes the phone very heavy and therefore this phone doesnt compete with the Evo.
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. That is obvious @ Atom_9
You all make my freaking brains HURT. The droids, all of them, are made out of gorrilla glass.. htc and motorola decided its the best stuff.. the only android phones not made with gorilla glass are the n1 (monoacid polycarbonate) and the evo.. (not sure.. Pyrex Screen Glass maybe?) Get it straight or ship out back to Never.Enroled.Retards (&) .Dumbasses. U!
Ha! same thing happened to my dad’s Droid. He dropped it in his truck and when he opened the door, it fell out on the cement and broke.
Just dropping the droid on the floor wouldn’t break the glass. I dropped mine 2 times, one time when I was running very fast and it dropped and I even stepped on it and nothing happened. That is a tough phone!
Dropped my droid yesturday. slipped right out of my hand and fell on the concrete path at a college. Hit the upper left corner. the plastic case fell off and I have a fracture from the top left corner to the botten right. my mom wants me to deal withthe big crack and 2 other ones it made but I have another year and a half on my contract. This is why we get the insurance right? to cover stuff like this?
Well I have been fortunate enough to have only ever dropped a phone once (my poor Treo. Fortunately I got a whole bunch of shells for it beforehand) but it seems to me people drop their phones a LOT! I got one of the Seidio cases for my Droid and it gives more grip without adding a lot of bulk. The phone never really struck me as shoddy (except maybe the keyboard. Looks like stickers, doesn’t it?).
Woo Hoo…. Make a gorilla LCD. My Droid dropped out of it’s “protective case”, both front edge cover and phone separating from the full back case+clip. That “gorilla glass” held. The LCD didn’t… thanks for jack-squat “you damn dirty ape”. Lovely (intact) glass covering for a rainbow of lines amid black spider web.
I guess I’ve been lucky! I’ve dropped my Droid on pavement 3 times, once thought I put it in my pocket after I stood up out of my car but I missed, once it was on my lap when I got out of my car and once it fell out of a belt pocket while I was cycling on the road going about 10mph. Each time the metal bezel around the screen got nicked up, all four corners are beat up. I have a tiny hairline fracture in the glass 1cm long near the ear speaker where it says “Motorola”. Each time the back opened and the battery came out but no impairment to funtionality! I also took my Droid camping last wee, I use the gps when hiking. It was in my pocket when I fell in a stream! I very quickly got up, pulled it out and dried it off. I opened the back, drying out the couple drops that had gotten in, then I shook and blew the water out of the metal speaker grill on the back. It was fine! Just the speaker seems a bit fuzzier sounding now. I think this device is amazing and more durable than I would have ever imagined! Sorry to all you folks out there who have been less fortunate, I’m being more careful but accidents do happen!
Damn, What are you folks doing to your phones???? I’ve dropped my Droid countless times, once off a ladder 15 feet over a concrete driveway (see if I ever answer another of her pms… I mean “emergency” calls while I’m working), and nothing but a few scratches/gauges on the case!! Not until today, when I knelt down with the phone in my cargo pocket thus kneeling on the phone, did the screen crack, and the panel is fine just the glass. This phone’s durability is awesome compared to others, trust me I went through 5 phones in 8 months previous to this Droid, only after a solid 10 months of abuse did it finally break… and it still works!!! awesome I tell you!!